Chair’s Report on BFA 2009-2010

October 3, 2010by admin

An Active Year for the Berkeley Faculty Association

Prompted by the furloughs announced in summer 2009, a small group of faculty met to reactivate the BFA to protect faculty interests, broadly construed, amidst the current crisis. An October 2009 election brought in a new BFA Board of Directors and officers, after which the BFA swung into action.

In the fall, we set up a new website, ran a membership drive, and connected with other groups of faculty, students, and staff concerned with current and future threats to the integrity of the University of California.

In the spring, BFA began to work on the state political front. BFA officers met with several California legislators to discuss the endangered future of UC. With the help of funds from a private donor, BFA and SAVE organized buses for over 200 UC faculty members to participate in the March 4th “Educate the State” rally at the Capitol.

As the year came to a close, BFA wrote and disseminated reports sounding alarms on the condition of faculty pensions, the Gould Working Groups recommendations (Regents’ Commission on the Future of the University), and on threats to the campus child-care centers. We will continue to monitor cost-cutting moves stimulated by Operation Excellence (“the Bain Report”) in order to guard against adverse impacts on programs across campus.

BFA remains gravely concerned about the endangerment of shared governance harbored by UCOP approaches to the current crisis, especially those that would dramatically transform undergraduate education at UC. In response to a UCOP proposal for a revenue-generating “cyber-campus,” BFA is now tentatively planning a one-day conference in the fall to examine the merits and pitfalls of on-line university degrees.